Vox Media Subsidiaries
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$380 million: That's the value of digital media startup Vox Media following its latest big cash infusion.
Vox News & Media Big Changes At Vox As Co-Founder Ezra Klein, EiC Lauren Williams Depart News Site Online news site announces new media projects and hiring growth as original members head for the exits. Vox Media reported a profit last year and had been aiming for another year of profitability in 2020. But Vox anticipates it will miss its full-year target by 25%, according to CNBC.
It's a stunning number -- stunning just like the August investment that valued BuzzFeed at $850 million.
Vox is obviously thinking big.
'The next generation of category-leading media brands are being built right now,' Vox CEO Jim Bankoff told me in an email, 'just as magazine titles and cable networks about sports and news and food took root in previous generations and ultimately created great value.'
So how's Vox going to make enough money to justify it?
There are hints throughout the 1,600-word memo that Bankoff sent to his staff and published on LinkedIn Sunday night. The short answer involves persuading companies to shift more ad dollars from TV over to digital; working directly with those companies to create new kinds of ads; and selling its publishing software to other web sites.
Vox Media Subsidiaries Inc
Vox Media wants to be seen as a new-age Time Inc. -- a media powerhouse with a lineup of high-quality publications that advertisers want and need to align themselves with. Vox's titles are The Verge, Eater, Curbed, SB Nation, Polygon, Racked, and its newest, Ezra Klein's Vox.
Bankoff also announced a new money-making hire -- Lindsay Nelson, who founded the unit of Slate that creates advertising content for paying customers like Lexus, British Airways and Mastercard.
The publishers work directly with advertisers to create content and market their wares right next to news stories and features.
Vox Media Subsidiaries
These arrangements are a crucial source of revenue, despite concerns about the blurred lines between trusted editorial and advertising.
Vox's unit for this is called Vox Creative, and Nelson will now run it.
What will differentiate Vox Creative from the competition, Bankoff said, are Vox's software platforms and creative minds. (Its web site says the unit 'extends the exact same tools and capabilities to our partners as we do to our own media brands.')
Like an array of other media companies, Vox is also seeking to produce marketers' live events and help them publish their own content.
Who Owns Vox Media Inc
Vox previously raised $40 million in October 2013. The company is privately held, so its financial results are not made public. There's been ample speculation that, as Re/code put it on Sunday, Vox 'must be burning an astonishing amount of money given its giant staff -- it's up to 350 employees now -- and whopping funding rounds.'
But Bankoff said he anticipates that the company will turn a profit in 2015.
This year he focused on investments in Vox and in the three titles he acquired late last year -- Curbed, Eater and Racked -- to increase their traffic and engagement.
'From here,' he said in the memo, 'our challenge is to nurture and grow each of our brands -- not only by building traffic and reach, but also by strengthening their authority and recognition.'
There's a final hint in the memo about another revenue source to come -- making Vox's publishing platform, known internally as Chorus, more widely available. Chorus has gotten lots of good press for the way it makes stories look and the way it helps employees collaborate.
Vox also has an ad platform called Hymnal, and Bankoff said the company will talk soon about 'how we can apply our solutions to broader constituencies.'
Vox Media Subsidiaries List
Associate Editor
Vox Media Subsidiaries News
Tess Townsend covers Alphabet and Google for Recode. Before joining Recode, she covered tech and startups generally for Inc. and reported on local government for newspapers including The Day in New London, Conn., and Roswell, New Mexico’s Roswell Daily Record. She is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
I have investments in a 401K and an IRA, both of which are managed as typical blind trusts over which I make no investment decisions. I’m not directly invested in any tech company funds.
I use the services of the company I cover, such as Gmail. I may test devices and services made or offered by Google or other Alphabet subsidiaries when necessary for reporting for limited periods of time. My company or I will purchase any product or service I use long term or permanently. I have my own company-paid cellphone and broadband services. I do not consult for any tech companies or industry groups.
Recode is owned wholly by Vox Media, a company with an audience of 170 million worldwide. It has eight distinct media brands: The Verge (Technology and Culture), Vox.com (News), SB Nation (Sports), Polygon (Gaming), Eater (Food and Nightlife), Racked (Shopping, Beauty and Fashion), Curbed (Real Estate and Home), as well as Recode (Tech Business).
Vox Media has a number of investors, including, but not limited to, Comcast Ventures and NBCUniversal, both of which are owned by Comcast Corporation. My posts have total editorial independence from these investors, even when they touch on products and services these companies produce, compete with, or invest in. The same goes for all content on Recode and at our conferences. No one in this group has influence on or access to the posts we publish. We will also add a direct link to this disclosure when we write directly about the companies.